When someone compared the Free Basics service to "internet colonialism", he replied: ”Anti-colonialism has been economically catastrophic for Indian people for decades. Why stop now?”

The tweet was subsequently deleted, but not before it had been widely circulated in India, which has a highly active social media community including more than 22 million Twitter users.

The phrase “East India Company” began trending on Twitter on Wednesday after dozens of users accused Facebook of acting like the former British trading company, which effectively ran most of the Indian subcontinent in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

The BBC website was among those offered to Free Basics users under Facebook’s internet.org programme, which is operational in 38 developing countries including South Africa, Kenya and Bangladesh.

Mark Zuckerberg responded to the ban in a Facebook post on Tuesday, saying he was “disappointed” but remained “committed to keep working to break down barriers to connectivity in India and around the world”.

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Everyone in the world should have access to the internet. That's why we launched Internet.org with so many different...